EFFECTS OF SELF-ESTEEM AND NEED FOR APPROVAL ON AFFECTIVE AND COGNITIVE REACTIONS - DEFENSIVE AND TRUE SELF-ESTEEM

The study compared the affective and cognitive reactions of three diff erent personality groups after experiencing failure and success: indiv iduals with high self-esteem and high need for approval (nAPP)-defensi ve high self-esteem. One hundred and thirty eight subjects completed t he Marlow-Crowne Soical Desirability Scale, and two scales of the Self -Rating Scale, self-regard and academic self-esteem. Subjects were giv en and anologies test and were then given either success or failure fe edback. They were then asked to predict their success and to express t heir willingness to succeed in another task. Results showed that the a ffective responses of the subjects with high self-esteem and low nAPP differed from the other two groups. The results suggest that there are two types of high self-esteem individuals, those with defensive high self-esteem and those with true self-esteem.